AN EXPRESSIVE ARTS & INTERPLAY RETREAT
The Art of Grieving:
Synergia Ranch Retreat
October 22 – 25, 2026
30 Minutes from Santa Fe, New Mexico
REGISTER TODAY | Limited to 20 People
Let’s make art out of what has happened in our lives!
A Note From Sheila
So much has happened in our individual and collective lives since I first began writing about grief and the ways that the arts can help us process and transform ourselves and our lives through them.
I’d love for you to have the opportunity to step away for a few days into a beautiful setting and community of like minded folks, to playfully focus on your own creativity and what can come from all that has happened.
Perhaps there is someone you would like to bring with you, in person, or in keepsakes and photos that bring them to mind.
What This Retreat is About?
Join us for the Art of Grieving InterPlay Expressive Arts and Art-Making Retreat, a unique gathering designed to help you explore creativity as a path through grief and life transitions.
Together, we’ll create a supportive circle where we can honor our heartbreaks, our joys, and all that life has handed us. Using InterPlay, an improvisational approach to storytelling, movement, and voice, alongside hands-on artmaking, we will discover the spiral path of growth and insight that a transformed grief bestows.
What Will We Do?
Over four days in this nurturing, southwestern art scene setting, we will:
● Engage in InterPlay practices, gentle, playful movement, storytelling, and voice that help us access the wisdom of our own bodies and a supportive group body.
● Visiting the Kewa Pueblo, we will design and art, giving form, color and substance to what lives in our hearts.
● Hold rituals of remembrance, offering creative ways to honor loved ones who have died, and exploring new ways to stay connected to them.
● Enjoy spacious time in nature in the high-desert, “Land of Enchantment, that helps us remember that we, too, are part of the cycles of loss and renewal.
● Build a compassionate community, so we do not carry our stories alone.
● By weekend’s end, you’ll carry home new art pieces, deeper insights, and connections with a circle of kindred spirits.
Who is This Retreat For?
This retreat is for people who:
● Are grieving someone they love, or a life chapter that has ended, and want to honor any loss through creative expression.
● Feel called to explore their creativity, whether they’re seasoned artists or complete beginners.
● Are looking for new ways to process the complex emotions of living in these times, grief, beauty, uncertainty, hope.
● Long to be with others who understand that grief is not something to be “gotten over,” but to be companioned, witnessed, and transformed.
AS FRANCIS WELLER WRITES
“Soul activism is what we are called to in this extreme time.”
Through the expressive arts of InterPlay and art-making, we engage in that very activism, tending to what is most tender, personal, and profound.
Where & With Whom?
The retreat takes place at the Synergia Ranch Retreat Center, thirty minutes from the beautiful Santa Fe, NM. It will be facilitated by Dr. Sheila K. Collins, Author of The Art of Grieving: How the Arts and Art-Making Help Us Grieve and Live Our Best Lives & Christine Gautreaux, MSW, Co-author of Stillpoint: A Self-Care Playbook for Caregivers to Find Ease, Time to Breathe & Reclaim Joy.
Art Making in Collaboration with:
Mary Louise Tafoya & The Kewa Pueblo
Synergia Ranch Retreat Center
Located 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe, NM
Mary Louise Tafoya
Award-winning Native American Jeweler
Kewa Pueblo
Known as Kewa or Santo Domingo
Practicals
WHEN
Thursday evening, October 22nd through midday Sunday, October 25th, 2026
WHERE
Synergia Ranch Retreat Center
+ 2 field trips with activities included
AIRPORT
Santa Fe (30 min),
Albuquerque, NM (45 min)
REGISTRATION
Opens March 1st, 2026.
Space is limited to 20
people
$300 holds your space
Deadline September 1st
for all monies due.
$1335
Lodging, meals,
& programming | double
$1535
Lodging, meals
& programming | single
$895
Day rate for meals
& programming
If you are wondering whether this experience is right for you, or if it fits where you are in your own life, feel free to reach out.
You can text me at (817) 706-4967 or email me directly at sheilakcollins@gmail.com and we can set up a time to talk.
If someone comes to mind who might appreciate a few days of creativity, reflection, and community, especially someone moving through loss or life transition.
